a comedy. By definition, a tragedy, on the other hand, demanded that the protagonist must experience a tragic fall from his position of power and respect at the end of the tale. And even a Shakespeare tragedy could contain comic scenes before that tragic ending took place. However, today’s reader should keep in mind that English drama was back then in a state of constant change and evolution. The rules and conventions recognized and established in one decade could be thrown out or turned upside down in the next decade. Less than two decades beforeTheMerchant of Venicewas first performed, another fine English poet,Sir Philip Sidney, in hisDefenseof Poesy(circa 1582) severely criticized the mixture of tragedy and comedy (the mingling of kings and clowns) in aplay:
But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. I know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is a thing recounted with space of time, not represented in one moment; and I know the ancients have one or two examples of tragi-comedies,as